A microfluidics-dispensing-printing strategy for Janus photonic crystal microspheres towards smart patterned displays

From the implementation point of view, the printable magnetic Janus colloidal photonic crystals (CPCs) microspheres are highly desirable. Herein, we developed a dispensing-printing strategy for magnetic Janus CPCs display via a microfluidics-automatic printing system. Monodisperse core/shell colloidal particles and magnetic Fe₃O₄ nanoparticles precursor serve as inks. Based on the equilibrium of three-phase interfacial tensions, Janus structure is successfully formed, followed by UV irradiation and self-assembly of colloid particle to generate magnetic Janus CPCs microspheres. Notably, this method shows distinct superiority with highly uniform Janus CPCs structure, where the TMPTA/Fe₃O₄ hemisphere is in the bottom side while CPCs hemisphere is in the top side. Thus, by using Janus CPCs microspheres with two different structural colors as pixel points, a pattern with red flower and green leaf is achieved. Moreover, 1D linear Janus CPCs pattern encapsulated by hydrogel is also fabricated. Both the color and the shape can be changed under the traction of magnets, showing great potentials in flexible smart displays. We believe this work not only offers a new feasible pathway to construct magnetic Janus CPCs patterns by a dispensing-printable fashion, but also provides new opportunities for flexible and smart displays.     

Response surface methodology toward the optimization of high-energy carotenoid extraction from Aristeus antennatus shrimp

High-energy assisted extraction techniques, like ultrasound assisted extraction (UAE) and microwave assisted extraction (MAE), are widely applied over the last years for the recovery of bioactive compounds such as carotenoids, antioxidants and phenols from foods, animals and herbal natural sources. Especially for the case of xanthophylls, the main carotenoid group of crustaceans, they can be extracted in a rapid and quantitative way with the use of UAE and MAE.     

Facet-dependent antibacterial activity of Au nanocrystals

Engineered nanomaterials have attracted significantly attention as one of the most promising antimicrobial agents for against multidrug resistant infections. The toxicological responses of nanomaterials are closely related to their physicochemical properties, and establishment of a structure-activity relationship for nanomaterials at the nano-bio interface is of great significance for deep understanding antibacterial toxicity mechanisms of nanomaterials and designing safer antibacterial nanomaterials. In this study, the antibacterial behaviors of well-defined crystallographic facets of a series of Au nanocrystals, including {100}-facet cubes, {110}-facet rhombic dodecahedra, {111}-facet octahedra, {221}-facet trisoctahedra and {720}-facet concave cubes, was investigated, using the model bacteria Staphylococcus aureus. We find that Au nanocrystals display substantial facet-dependent antibacterial activities. The low-index facets of cubes, octahedra, and rhombic dodecahedra show considerable antibacterial activity, whereas the high-index facets of trisoctahedra and concave cubes remained inert under biological conditions. This result is in stark contrast to the previous paradigm that the high-index facets were considered to have higher bioactivity as compared with low-index facets. The antibacterial mechanism studies have shown that the facet-dependent antibacterial behaviors of Au nanocrystals are mainly caused by differential bacterial membrane damage as well as inhibition of cellular enzymatic activity and energy metabolism. The faceted Au nanocrystals are unique in that they do not induce generation of reactive oxygen species, as validated for most antibiotics and antimicrobial nanostructures. Our findings may provide a deeper understanding of facet-dependent toxicological responses and suggest the complexities of the nanomaterial-cell interactions, shedding some light on the development of high performance Au nanomaterials-based antibacterial therapeutics.     

Negative compressibility property in hinging open-cell Kelvin structure

A new three-dimensional(3 D) cellular model based on hinging open-cell Kelvin structure is proposed for its negative compressibility property. It is shown that this model has adjustable compressibility and does exhibit negative compressibility for some certain conformations. And further study shows that the images of compressibility are symmetrical about the certain lines, which indicates that the mechanical properties of the model in the three axial directions are interchangeable and the model itself has a certain geometric symmetry. A comparison of the Kelvin model with its anisotropic form with the dodecahedron model shows that the Kelvin model has stronger negative compressibility property in all three directions.Therefore, a new and potential method to improve negative compressibility property can be derived by selecting the system type with lower symmetry and increasing the number of geometric parameters.     

准移动闭塞系统的元胞自动机模型及列车延迟传播规律的研究

在NaSch模型的基础上，针对铁路交通的特点提出一种用于模拟准移动闭塞系统的元胞自动机模型.应用该模型模拟了准移动闭塞系统列车延迟传播的交通现象，分析了准移动闭塞系统中的轨道定位单元长度、发车时间间隔、初始延迟时间等因素对列车延迟传播的影响. 关键词： 元胞自动机 交通流 准移动闭塞     

Space-Time Directional Lyapunov Exponents for Cellular Automata

Space-time directional Lyapunov exponents are introduced. They describe the maximal velocity of propagation to the right or to the left of fronts of perturbations in a frame moving with a given velocity. The continuity of these exponents as function of the velocity and an inequality relating them to the directional entropy is proved.     

Finding the response matrix to the external action from a subspace for a discrete linear stochastic dynamical system

For a discrete linear stochastic dynamical system, computation of the response matrix to the external action from a subspace using given observational data is examined. An algorithm is proposed and substantiated that makes it possible to improve the numerical accuracy and to reduce the amount of observational data compared to the general case where an arbitrary external action is allowed. As an illustration, a discrete system arising in the analysis of a linear stochastic dynamical continuous-time system is considered more thoroughly. Some numerical results are presented.     

与HBV X蛋白相互作用的细胞蛋白的筛选及其鉴定

参考GenBank核苷酸序列库中的HBV的核苷酸序列设计合成了一对对应于HBx基因的引物，从原发性肝癌(hepatocellular carcinoma，HCC)患者的血清中提取HBV基因组DNA作为模板，扩增HBx编码区并测定了核苷酸序列．将该编码区克隆到酵母双杂交系统的诱饵蛋白表达载体pGBKT7中，转入酵母细胞AH109，进行表型鉴定．然后通过Mating实验从已制备好用于酵母双杂交系统的肝cDNA表达文库中筛选与HBx相互作用的细胞蛋白，并用体外免疫共沉淀实验进一步验证．研究表明，分离得到的与HBx基因编码的蛋白相互作用的4种新的细胞蛋白，分别是醛缩酶B、C8α亚基、一种丝氨酸蛋白酶Hepsin和一种未知蛋白．     

Ergodic properties and thermodynamic behavior of elementary reversible cellular automata. I. Basic properties

This is the first part of a series devoted to the study of thermodynamic behavior of large dynamical systems with the use of a family of fully-discrete and conservative models named elementary reversible cellular automata (ERCAs). In this paper, basic properties such as conservation laws and phase space structure are investigated in preparation for the later studies. ERCAs are a family of one-dimensional reversible cellular automata having two Boolean variables on each site. Reflection and Boolean conjugation symmetries divide them into 88 equivalence classes. For each rule, additive conserved quantities written in a certain form are regarded as a kind of energy, if they exist. By the aid of the discreteness of the variables, every ERCA satisfies the Liouville theorem or the preservation of phase space volume. Thus, if an energy exists in the above sense, statistical mechanics of the model can formally be constructed. If a locally defined quantity is conserved, however, it prevents the realization of statistical mechanics. The existence of such a quantity is examined for each class and a number of rules which have at least one energy but no local conservation laws are selected as hopeful candidates for the realization of thermodynamic behavior. In addition, the phase space structure of ERCAs is analyzed by enumerating cycles exactly in the phase space for systems of comparatively small sizes. As a result, it is revealed that a finite ERCA is not ergodic, that is, a large number of orbits coexist on an energy surface. It is argued that this fact does not necessarily mean the failure of thermodynamic behavior on the basis of an analogy with the ergodic nature of infinite systems.